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Would it be too flippant to say "Braveheart?" Yes. Yes it probably would be.

Cultural memory is a tricky thing, and it's hard to know for a fact why something isn't as memorable as something else. We can, however, explore some possibilities.

#A Thumbnail Sketch of Scottish Independence Let's start with some bits of the history that may give us a guide. William Wallace, for all we "know" about him today, is actually a fairly obscure figure. We know he existed, was from a knightly family, participated in some of the early military action against the English in 1297, with enough success that he rose to jointly command the Scottish armies at Stirling Bridge, and his victory led to him being made "Guardian of Scotland" a title he held for only about a year before he was defeated at Falkirk and resigned the post. He then more or less disappears, possibly going to France to seek aid, until he pops back up in 1304, does some fighting, and is then captured, and then famously and brutally executed.

Robert the Bruce was the son of the confusingly named Robert the Bruce, son of, guess who, Robert the Bruce. This is gonna get tricky. We’re going to call them Robert V, Robert VI, and the youngest, the one you’re asking about, will be Robert the Bruce. Robert V was one of two major claimants to the throne, competing against John Balliol, in a dispute that was to be arbitrated by King Edward I, (This may look weird in hindsight, but Scotland and England had been at peace for a long time, and friendliness with Edward was seen as crucial for continued peace. Edward decided in favor of Balliol, and, in addition, extracted a pledge of fealty from him. The first thing that's important to note here that while Edward more or less enforcing submission at swordpoint was...shall we say controversial, the legal decision was probably correct. Under traditional Scottish practice, Balliol had the stronger claim.

Over the next several years, Edward’s expectations of Scotland, aid in military campaigns, the ability to act as the final appeal in courts, and his generally stepping on Scottish privileges and laws made King John’s position basically untenable. Anger amongst Scottish lords, and possibly his own irritation caused King John to reject Edward’s demands for military aid against France, and instead form an alliance with the French.

Meanwhile, the Bruces had a bit of a problem. They had been cross border lords for generations, and had long sworn fealty to both the King of Scotland and the King of England. Robert V, after losing the legal battle, abdicated rule of his Scottish lands to his son, Robert VI, and then, after his death, Robert VI also became constable of the city of Carlisle. All was well while things were peaceful between Scotland and England, but when the Scottish lords joined the French, their first move was to attack Carlisle, where the young Robert the Bruce was in command of the defenses.

This is where we get into the first inklings of the problems with Bruce’s memory. Wallace’s story is very simple. He was fairly poorly known knight, he fought the English, won, then lost, fought some more and died in English custody. Here, at the beginning of the wars between England and Scotland, Robert the Bruce is apparently on the English side. It should be noted, of course, that the attack on Carlisle was as much about internal Scottish politics as anything else. There were some very complicated internal grudges, and some of the Bruce’s rivals certainly saw this as an opportunity to settle the score, so it wasn’t as if they could simply join the Scottish side. Besides, Edward I was their rightful lord in their capacity as Constables of Carlisle. Either way, the raid on Carlisle fails, and Edward I invades soon after, crushing the Scots at Berwick and Dunbar. King John is deposed and taken into English custody, and Edward now directly rules Scotland.

This is where Wallace comes into the picture, leading all of those revolts we were talking about earlier. What’s important for this part of the story is Wallace was, contrary to popular belief, not revolting on behalf of Robert the Bruce, he was a supporter of the deposed King John, and indeed, as fighting went on for years, all of the Scottish lords who fought on and governed bits of the country did so on behalf of King John, not Robert the Bruce. Robert the Bruce’s own loyalties over the next several years are somewhat indeterminate, and he seems to have been loyal both to Edward I and to have fought against him at several different points. Generally though, he seems to have seen King John not as his rightful overlord, but as an old enemy of his family, against whom he could make common cause with Edward I.

Robert the Bruce only seems to have started planning to seize the throne he viewed as his through his Grandfather after King John’s chances of regaining the throne were finally dashed by the defeat of the French at Courtrai in 1302, and the submission of his key ally and Guardian of Scotland, John Comyn, in 1304. This is where we get to the second wrinkle that makes the Bruce’s history a little harder to glorify: His first known action towards seizing the throne of Scotland was to meet Comyn in a Franciscan friary and after a meeting, kill him. He then hastily had himself crowned King of Scotland and then of course would go on to fight for a very long time, finally winning Scottish independence.

So all that narrative history provides us with our first hints of the reason for Wallace’s relative prominence. Wallace’s story is fairly short, and it is pretty easy to present him as a martyr for Scotland, (which many people did, and we’ll get into that in a minute). Robert the Bruce’s story is much more complicated. He fought on both sides in the initial phases of the conflict, from 1296 to 1304, but fundamentally he seems to have been more animated by his animosity for King John than by anything else. Only when he has a chance to claim the throne he felt was rightfully his does he decisively declare for the Scottish side, and in the course of doing so more or less commits a military coup against the current ruling magnate in Scotland. It’s of course impossible to know what he felt, and there are definitely pro-Bruce narratives that explain his actions in ways that some may find convincing. I’m largely agnostic on the issue, the point here is that it doesn’t exactly make a neat and easy story.